XCM Solutions Will Offer Integrated Scheduling Package

XCM Solutions, LLC, a provider of Cloud-based workflow management software for the accounting profession, announced plans to introduce a scheduling module for its award-winning XCM workflow automation software. The new module will incorporate automated, real-time resource allocation functionality, which is essential for tax practices and calendar-based scheduling and commonly used in A&A and other areas of the firm.

The company plans to officially unveil the software in the "Next Generation of XCM" session, to be presented by the company's founder and CEO Mark Albrecht, CPA, MST, at the Digital CPA 2012 CPA2Biz Cloud User Conference in Washington DC, October 28-30.

"Workflow is more than simply routing information or moving work through steps in the process," said Albrecht. "For our users, XCM is a strategic tool that helps them improve productivity and better manage their work. Our clients are already using it for forecasting and balancing workloads to help make tax season more manageable, so adding the ability to do real-time resource allocation and work scheduling is a natural extension."

"XCM includes many elements related to how we run our tax department," said Kaz Unalan, CPA, director, Tax & Business Advisory Services, GBQ Partners LLC, an INSIDE Public Accounting Best-of-the-Best Firm for 2012. "So, it's not surprising that when we came to them with a custom report we created to help us manage our tax practice, they were already developing an automated scheduling module that would help us achieve our goals. Having visibility into who has what now, what's coming, and what's anticipated based on history - and the ability to act on that knowledge in real-time - that's a powerful management tool that will help us meet our clients' needs today and give us the flexibility to grow."

The resource allocation piece will empower tax practices to leverage history captured during the preceding tax season(s) in order to forecast daily workload during the next season for real-time work assigning. This component will find availability based on role, skill level, work assigned, work anticipated, budgeted, and remaining hours to help firms more efficiently and effectively manage teams, reducing stress during tax season.

"Tying scheduling to workflow is a natural fit," said Bob Locke, XCM Solutions vice president of Sales and Marketing. "Firms using XCM this tax season will benefit from historical workload data when they implement the scheduling module - giving them an accurate picture of anticipated work across tax season for more effective resource management."

The calendar-based scheduling component will allow firms to assign jobs that have a specific beginning and end point according to the number of hours required of various staff roles, skill levels, and expertise. Scheduled work is also exportable to Microsoft Outlook's calendar feature.

Tight integration between the XCM workflow software and the scheduling module empower firms to dynamically plan for and manage workloads firm-wide. Development is wrapping up on the more complex, logic-driven resource allocation component, which will enter into beta testing this fall. The full scheduling module will be available in May 2013.